1944 ] 
Three Species of Coleosoma from Florida 
51 
THREE SPECIES OF COLEOSOMA FROM FLORIDA 
(ARANEiE; THERIDIID^) 1 
By Elizabeth B. Bryant 
Among material recently sent the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology by Mr. George Nelson from Sebastian, Florida, were 
specimens of Coleosoma flavipes O.P.-Cambridge, described 
from males, and known only from the type localities in Mexico 
and Guatemala. Impressed by this discovery, I wrote to Dr. 
William M. Barrows, who has collected in Florida, and was 
gratified to receive in response Coleosoma collected by him at 
various times. 
Among this material, I have identified not only Coleosoma 
floridanum Banks, the only species of the genus previously 
known from the state, but also both males and females of Cam- 
bridge’s C. flavipes together with a male and females of an un- 
described species, C. normale spec. nov. Of this material, C. 
flavipes Camb. and C. normale were taken in Florida in early 
summer. Cambridge does not mention dates in his descriptions. 
C. floridanum Banks proves to have a wide seasonal distribu- 
tion, having been taken in mid-summer at Soledad, Cuba, and 
in November at Floreana in the Galapagos. 
The female of C. flavipes is very unlike the male, as the ab- 
domen extends in a prolongation above the spinnerets. In this 
respect it suggests Keyserling’s figures of Achcea in his “Theri- 
diidae, 1884, 1, pi. 5.” 
The genus Coleosoma was based by O.P.-Cambridge in 
1882 on the species hlandum Camb. from Ceylon, also known 
only from the type, a male. Simon synonymized the genus with 
Theridion , a fact which has been the cause of some confusion. 
In 1884, Keyserling described and figured males, as Coleosoma 
hlandum from the Marx Coll, taken at Enterprise, Florida. 
Mr. Banks noted the difference of his Florida specimens from 
the original description and in 1900, named the former flori- 
danum. And in 1897, Simon reported as Theridion hlandum , the 
1 Published with the aid of a grant from the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology, at Harvard College. 
